Emily Before
by WriteChristineR
Summary: Emily at sixteen.
1. Movies

Chapter 1

Movies

"Thanks Em," Rose said as I handed her my dollar. My sisters are the only people in the world who are allowed to call me Em, and Totsie and Hopie are only allowed when I'm in a good mood. Even my best friend Sarah has to call me Emily. I'm not particularly fond of Em as a nickname, I like my full name, Emily, much better, but I will usually let my sisters get away with it because they called me that before I minded.

Growing up with five sisters can get on my nerves at times. I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm right in the middle. I have two sisters who are older than I am and two that are younger. I probably get along best with Isabelle, who's fifteen, only a year younger than I am.

Hopie is my youngest sister. She's only twelve, and although she's cute, I can't really see her as anything other than the baby.

My oldest sister Totsie is twenty-one, and in college. We don't really get along. She seems to think she's better than the rest of us because she's the oldest.

Rose is eighteen, two years older than I. We get along… usually.

The five of us used to go to see a movie every Friday. Since Totsie went to college, it's only been the four of us. Rose likes it because she's the oldest now, but it hasn't gone to her head as bad as it has Totsie's. I don't think it will, Rose isn't really the oldest, and she knows that, although she doesn't always like to admit it.

Rose handed the man at the ticket counter the five dollars she had received from my parents in exchange for four tickets. Tickets are a dollar fifty for adults and a dollar for children, which is Hopie, because she's still twelve. We each contribute an extra dollar each week for popcorn and other movie snacks. My parents would have paid for that too, but we probably would have had to listen to a lecture from my mother about eating healthfully every week, so it was well worth it for us to pay for our own snacks.

I'd seen the movie that was playing four times already, and although I have always enjoyed movies, this one had started to become monotonous. As always, I was sitting beside Isabelle in the theater, and we were continually whispering comments in each others' ears about the movie. We never commented the first time we saw a movie, but the second time we did, and the more times we saw a movie, the more frequent our comments become.

"That man walks like he has something in his you-know," I said to my sister.

She laughed, and replied with "Her face looks like it's been slammed into a brick wall."

At this point our comments had become closer to gossip than legitimate movie commentary, and I knew it, but I didn't mind a bit. Halfway through the movie, we got bored with the movie itself and begin commentating on others in the theater instead. "Look how surprised that lady in front of us is, I saw that coming the first time I saw this movie," I told Isabelle.

"The couple two rows in front of me and three seats to the left are more interested in each other than the movie." Couples like this one were one of our favorite things to watch after we'd seen a movie three or four times.

"Ha! Look how he's all over her!" I said.

The boy moved in and started kissing the girl's neck. "That's going to leave a mark," Isabelle said.

"Right about that," I said, giggling a little. We commented like this until the end of the movie.

Isabelle and I lagged behind on the walk home so that we could talk undisturbed by Rose and Hopie. "Our comments were particularly horrible today, don't you think?" I asked Isabelle, pleased with myself. We tended to take pride in our rudeness rather than shame.

"Definitely," she said, pleased as I.

"You know, Rose was listening to some of what we were saying, I could see her." Since Totsie had left, Rose always sat on my left, Isabelle on my right. Hopie sat on Rose's left. We almost always sat in the same order.

"Really?"

"Oh yes, I don't think she cares what we say. She's so much nicer than Totsie, she would have yelled at us."

"Remember the time she made us leave the theater?"

"She said we were disturbing others trying to watch the movie," I laughed.

"We were disturbing her and… No, that's all."

"That was years ago. Weren't we only seven and eight? Mom got so angry with her for letting us go home alone."

"I don't know what she thought was going to happen. It's not like we usually have killers roaming the streets."

"It's eight blocks though, it was far for us when we were that young," I said reasonably, much more willing to take my mother's side than my oldest sister's.

"At that point we weren't even saying anything bad, we were just talking."

"I know. You have to admit it was funny though, wasn't it?"

"Hilarious. I loved seeing Mom's face when we told her that Totsie had kicked us out. You know, you'll be the oldest when Rose goes to college next year," Isabelle pointed out.

"I know. There will only be three of us then."

"We might as well just go to the movies ourselves, why drag Hopie along?"

"She would have a fit. Besides, it's our tradition."

"It won't be long before you're in college. I can't bear the thought of going with only Hopie."

I couldn't get the thought of going to college into my mind. I was sixteen, but it felt like I still had so far to go to that point. "You have a while to worry about that," I said, "But when it happens, I'll go someplace that isn't too far away, and I'll come home every Friday so that we can continue the tradition. We should go ourselves sometime though, without the rest of them. That would be fun."

"Why? We go every Friday anyway. It's not as if we could see something we wouldn't see anyway."

"I know, but it would be fun without the other two.  
"Why don't we do something different? We could go shopping or out for ice cream."

"We could do that some time. We should. Maybe I could bring Sarah and you could bring Catherine," I said, referring to Isabelle's best friend. "We could make a real party of it."

"No. Let's just you and I go. If we have friends, we won't talk to one another, we'll only talk to our friends."

"Well, all right, I suppose you're right," I said to Isabelle.

"So, what do you think of Robert Norman?"

"Robert Norman, now?" I ask with a slight giggle. Isabelle seemed to be attracted to a different boy every third day.

"Yes, what do you think of him?"  
"Oh, he's all right I guess. At least he's your age," I joked. The last two boys Isabelle has fallen for had both been a year older than I.

"Oh, be quiet. You haven't liked anyone since Bo Kleid."

"Now you be quiet. I dated Bo for three months, which is longer than you have even liked one single boy."

"I liked Nate Trinsade for three and a half months."

"Nate Trinsade wouldn't have gone out with you if you had tied him down. He's nearly Rose's age!" Why Isabelle always fell for older men was beyond me.

"You have to admit he's good looking."

"I don't care that he's good looking, he has candy wrappers for brains and he's almost two years older than I am!"

"Why don't you like anyone? You haven't liked anyone for two whole months."

"Why are you keeping track?"

"I'm your sister, it's my job."

"It is most certainly not your job to keep track of who I like and when, right down to the hour. How do you know I haven't liked every boy in school and I just haven't told you about it?" I was getting angry with her, the last thing I needed was my little sister monitoring my social life.

"You tell me most everything, especially about boys. I can't help it that I'm younger than you but have had more boyfriends. I know more about boys than you. You may be smarter than I about most things, but boys are one area where I can top your knowledge, and you know it."

"Maybe I'd talk to Rose or Totsie."

"You wouldn't talk to Rose. The last time you talked to Rose about a boy she told you that you were too young to think about boys. You were thirteen. And you can't usually talk to Totsie for five minutes without it turning into a brawl."

"How do you know I haven't talked to Rose since then?"

"I know these things."

"You're right. I only talk to you and to Sarah. Sarah isn't a very reliable source on the subject though, she's never dated anyone."

"Why not? She's pretty."

"I know, but she doesn't want to date. She's been asked out by three boys in the last year, but has declined each of them. You know how smart Sarah is, she says she doesn't want to be distracted from her schoolwork."

"That's a little too conservative for me," Isabelle said.

"And for me," I replied. "That's Sarah though; she's a little… off, at times."

"You're right about that," Isabelle said as we walked up the pathway to our house behind Rose and Hopie. Sometimes I thought I enjoyed the time before and after movies on Fridays even better than the movies themselves.


	2. Raindrops and Rose

Chapter 2

Raindrops and Rose

It was an eighty-five degree day in mid-July, and I really wanted to go swimming. It had been ninety degrees, but then it rained, and it was now eighty-five. I wanted to get Isabelle or Sarah and go swimming, but it was still raining. It had been raining for almost two hours now, and I really wished it would stop.

I was sitting alone on my bed in my bedroom, reading. I liked reading, but it was hot, and I would rather have been swimming. Mine was one of only three rooms in the house that didn't have a ceiling fan, and the house was big. I was more aware of this unfortunate fact now than I usually was, because it was so hot.

For how large our family was, we definitely had enough money. Each of my sisters and I had our own bedrooms, although there were five of us. My father was a highly paid lawyer, and my sisters and I got the full effects of that. My mother always kept a maid around, and I very seldom liked them. They never seemed able to do anything to my mother's specification, although she almost never told them so. Every now and then I would tell them that they were doing something wrong, but they usually yelled at me or ignored me. One told me that she didn't have to listen to me because I wasn't the one paying her. When I told my mother that, she told me to stop bothering her. My mother almost never fired her maids, but they would occasionally quit so that we had a new one every few months. The longest we'd ever had one maid was two years. They were the longest two years of my life. I liked a little change at home every now and then.

I came to the end of my chapter and lay back on my bed. I could hear the rain on the windows and the roof, as my room was on the top floor of three. I had always loved the sound of raindrops hitting the roof, and while I usually listened to music in my room, I never did when it was raining. I closed my eyes and heard a crash of thunder. Even with my eyes shut, I could see the lightning flash. I loved summer storms, but still, I'd rather have been swimming.

I considered for a moment putting my swimsuit on and walking around in the rain to cool off, but decided against it. It was storming after all, and I didn't want to get hit by lightning. Besides, I was too old for such things.

_Now what?_ I didn't particularly like it when it rained. Listening to the storm was only good for so long, and I was quickly getting bored. _I wonder what Isabelle's doing._ I left my room and started to walk down the hallway toward my sister's room. When I opened the door though, I found that she wasn't inside.

The third floor of our house belonged to my sisters and I. Every one of us had our bedrooms on that floor. The hallways sort of spider webbed out from the center of the house, creating what I had always thought would look like an asterisk from above, and although I had never seen the house from above, I didn't think it looked like that, considering it looked so square and regal from the front.

There were multiple rooms in our house that weren't used for anything. Most of them had a bed and standard bedroom furniture in them, masquerading as guest rooms, although we very seldom had more than one or two guests at a time. The one at the very end of my hallway, that is, the hallway where my room was, was almost never used, except by me. I kept a shelf in the room filled with books I almost never read, and things from when I was younger that I almost never looked at.

When I cracked open the door to the room, which I considered to be just as much mine as was my room, I was surprised to find Rose. She hadn't noticed me, so I took advantage of that and stood in the doorway, watching her.

Rose had her back to me, and she appeared to be writing something. Be it a homework assignment or a diary, I couldn't tell. I assumed the latter, as she occasionally giggled and made various noises that wouldn't have made sense had she been working on homework. I couldn't see her facial expressions, but from her motions and sounds, guessed that they would have been interesting, and ever-changing.

Rose was the most mysterious of my sisters. I didn't know much about her at all, really, but had never noticed until just then. I wondered how long she had sat in this room just as I did on occasion. Did she come in here just to write in her diary, or did she do other things as well? She hadn't left anything behind, or I would have found it. She didn't keep things in the room as I had for so many years. I had always thought that this room was my secret, that nobody else ever frequented it. Apparently I had been wrong. Or was this the first time Rose had sat in this room? I wasn't sure if I liked sharing my special room with a girl I barely knew anything about.

Was she seeing anyone? One of the most basic questions, particularly in the lives of my sisters and I, and I hadn't the slightest clue. I didn't know any of her friends, yet she went out on occasion, so I knew they existed. What college was she going to? What kind of grades did she get? Why didn't I know? Did she wear makeup and paint her nails? What color eyes did she have? She was my sister, and I had never bothered to notice these things. I knew she had red hair, not auburn like Totsie's and mine, but red, like my mother's. This might have had something to do with my parents' logic in naming her Rose, but I didn't know for sure. My two youngest sisters had inherited my father's dark brown hair, but Totsie and I had both ended up with a blend of the hair colors of both of our parents: auburn.

Before, I had never noticed how pretty she was. Her hair was long and not curly like my mother's, but not straight, like mine and most of my sisters'. Hopie had the curly hair. Her hair was a long mishmash of brown spiral curls, which she could make look nice if she put the effort into it, but she only did so on occasion. Rose had wavy hair, entirely different from any of us. Unlike some wavy hair though, it didn't look as if it needed brushed within ten minutes of brushing it. Her skin was perfect; fair and unblemished, yet fairly pale for mid-summer.

Rose was apparently very concentrated on what she was doing; she never once turned and never saw me. Eventually I figured it would be polite for me to make myself known, although I didn't have to tell her I had been watching her for nearly five minutes.

I walked into the room and sat down beside Rose on the bed. She appeared startled at first, and she snapped the book she had been writing in shut. It turned out I had been right, it was a diary. After the book had closed, she seemed to relax. "Hi Em," she said. "What are you doing in here?"  
"Funny," I said. "I could ask you the same thing."

"I was writing," she said simply.

"Ah. I was just… bored I guess," I said. "Bad weather, got tired of my room." I wasn't yet ready to disclose the fact that I came in here often, and she wasn't saying anything either.

"That happens," Rose said simply. It seemed odd to me how awkward the conversation was between my older sister and I. If I had been talking to Totsie, either I would be angry with her or she with me by this point in time. If it was Hopie, I would probably be trying to escape the room, and she would be pestering me to do some childish thing with her. Isabelle and I would have probably been deep in conversation about something of absolutely no importance. But Rose, I didn't dislike her, but I didn't really have anything to talk to her about.

"You're sixteen," Rose said, not as a question, but a statement.

"Yes," I said, not sure where she was going.

"You'll be coming out this year," she said. Coming out ceremonies weren't something to put much thought into among the girls in our family. You came out when you were about sixteen, end of story. My mother, on the other hand, put more thought into our coming out ceremonies than almost anything else. None of us minded, and although I hadn't thought about mine much, now that Rose mentioned it, I was a little excited.

"Yes, I guess I will," I said, smiling. "Wow, I haven't thought about it much."

"It's not a huge big deal," Rose said. She had been through the coming out ritual two years ago, and hadn't gotten particularly into it, but hadn't minded it.

"Well, it kind of is," I said. "It's like proclaiming to society that you're an adult, you know?"

"It's a coming out, not a bat mitzvah," Rose said.

"I know, but we aren't Jewish, so it's kind of what we get instead," I said.

"I guess," Rose laughed, evidently having never thought of it this way. "Hey, want to go for a walk?" Rose asked me.

"It's raining," I told her, although it was obvious, as it could still be heard easily against the windows and the roof.

"So what?" she asked. "It isn't storming anymore. Grab your raincoat and your umbrella and meet me downstairs."

"Okay," I said smiling, pleased with the idea of walking in the rain with my older sister. It sounded more like something I'd do with Isabelle, yet I never had before.

I went into my room and grabbed my raincoat and umbrella, as Rose had instructed, and also pulled on the rain boots I had received for my last birthday.

I met Rose in the kitchen in front of the back door. We opened our umbrellas on the back porch, and set out down the sidewalk. We passed Hopie, dancing in the backyard in her bathing suit, the only confirmation I needed that I had been correct about being too old for such things.

My older sister and I walked down the street side by side, she in her classic yellow rain jacket and I in my red one, both with matching boots. We talked idly as we walked, and I found myself totally content with my newfound friend and role model. I didn't think I'd mind sharing my secret room with her one bit.


	3. Miss Celine

Chapter 3

Miss Celine

Not a week after Rose thought of it, my mother brought up my coming out ceremony. Rather than bothering to discuss it with me, she told me she had found a woman to come in on Saturday afternoon with dresses for me to choose from. I didn't mind, I didn't have anything planned for Saturday anyway.

When Saturday came, I watched a pretty, short woman walk in through the door. She looked to be in her twenties or thirties, but it was difficult to tell because of the way she was wearing her makeup. It wasn't as if she had too much on, it was just that it was applied so that it perfectly accentuated all of her favorable features. I couldn't tell if she had any unfavorable facial features, but if she did, the makeup hid them perfectly. She was followed into the house by at least nine or ten men carrying huge boxes that I could only assume held dresses.

I was right. I waited a little while to let them set up before following one of the last men upstairs to my bedroom, and when I got there I found more dresses than I had ever seen in one place hanging up on portable hanging bars on wheels. I could only figure that the bars had unfolded from those boxes that I had watched the men carry in. As I watched the last man unfold his box, I found that I was correct. I couldn't figure out how it had been done, but the boxes folded and unfolded in such a way that none of the dresses so much as wrinkled.

My mother showed up in the doorway moments later. "Emily dear, this is Miss Celine, she'll be assisting you to pick out your dress."

"Okay," I said, going with the flow, although I didn't feel that I needed the assistance. My mother usually had some old woman pick out her outfits for very formal, important events, but this was definitely not her. I was actually happy about this though, I had never liked my mother's woman much. She had never given me the impression that she liked children much, and my mother's clothes seemed to be the only thing that had interested her.

I didn't know what had happened to the other woman, but this woman, Miss Celine, was actually interesting, I liked her a lot. Apparently she had picked out clothes, or "advised on wardrobe concerns," as she put it, for many of my favorite movie stars and celebrities. She had met Audrey Hepburn, for example, on a number of occasions, which impressed me the most. She was one of my favorite actresses of all time.

It seemed that for every dress I tried on, she had a celebrity to compare me with, whether in a good way or a bad way. Many of the names she came out with I had never heard before, but I pretended I had for the sake of looking like I knew more about the world of Hollywood than I truly did. It was true that I had seen many movies, but I didn't know all that much about the actors themselves, although this woman did.

It seemed that any time I liked the looks of a dress on the hanger, Miss Celine told me it looked terrible. It wasn't as if I disagreed with her either. Almost every time she compared me to somebody who had once played the bride of Frankenstein, I agreed with her. I wouldn't have called myself the bride of Frankenstein, but I usually agreed that it looked bad.

I didn't have much confidence that what seemed like the hundredth dress I had tried on would work out for me, but it was one of my favorites I had seen so far, so I tried it on anyway. It did seem like I had been having better luck with the dresses I didn't like at first, but this dress was pretty. It was all white, with the skirt made up of layers of fabric, the layers closest to the top the shortest. Small white flowers were embroidered on the top of the dress in all the right places so that, at least on the hanger, it didn't look like a flower shop window. It came with white gloves with the same flower pattern as the dress.

I put it on behind the curtain that had been assembled by the men that had brought all of the dresses in. There was a full-length mirror back there so that I could see what it looked like, and I didn't think it looked bad. I assumed that Miss Celine would probably have a different point of view, if for no other reason than the feeling that I had that I would be trying on dresses for the rest of my life. Once I stepped out from behind the curtain, I was under Miss Celine's scrutinizing eye.

She frowned for a moment, as if concentrating. After a moment, she raised her eyebrows and said, "You're Judy Garland."

One strange thing about Miss Celine was that she never said I looked like somebody, she said I was that person. It had confused me at first, but now I was used to it. What was confusing me at that moment was the way that she had said it. She had said it with a kind of energy, but I couldn't tell whether she had meant it as a good thing or a bad thing. Her face remained expressionless a moment later, so I asked, "In the Wizard of Oz?" I didn't have anything against the movie, it was a good movie, I just didn't particularly want to look like Dorothy for my coming out ceremony.

"Easter Parade," she said.

"Oh, well, that's better I guess," I said. It was better, that was one of my favorite movies.

"It's excellent," she said. "That's the dress."

I couldn't believe it. I had been in my bedroom trying on dresses for at least two hours, honestly I had lost all track of time, and just like that, I was finished. "So I'm done?" I couldn't help but ask. It felt strange.

"You're finished," she said. "You may go, I'll have the boys pack up. This dress, of course, will stay."

"Thank you," I said, almost automatically.

"You're very welcome dear, but this is my job," was her response.

I started to say something, although I didn't know what. Goodbye? See you… when? Rather than bothering to think of a polite thing to say upon exit, I just left the room.

Walking down my hallway in my coming out dress felt like the oddest thing I had ever done. It wasn't as if I was only in the dress either, my hair was perfectly brushed, and I wore the whole package, complete with gloves and shoes. I was used to walking down this hallway in jeans, or now shorts as it was summer, or in my school uniform or a casual after-school or weekend type skirt. Now however, I was in my coming out dress.

I entered the central most room on our floor, which was nobody's bedroom, but had a bed in it, to an overdramatic gasp from my youngest sister and overenthusiastic clapping from the other two. I remembered doing the same for Totsie and for Rose, but it felt strange to be on the opposite end.

I'm telling you we have far too many rooms in our house. This was the room that, in a way, belonged to the five of us. If we were ever all together, aside from Friday movie nights, we were usually in this room. If you were to go into the room, you would see it as a fairly ordinary, if not boring, room. There was one twin bed, with a very standard floral print on the sheets and wall border. The walls themselves were white. This room was different though, in the way that it tended to be all or nothing. I had never been in the room without at least three of my sisters. It may sound completely cliché, but in a way, when we are all in this room, the situation is anything but boring. There is always enough personality in the room that we either clash or mesh, or sometimes both at the same time.

Much of what I just said might not make sense, but this room was sort of special, in its own way, to the five of us. It's the one thing that five girls, who throughout our lives have had to share very little, actually share. It's the one place that one of us never goes without the others. These thoughts are not mine alone, and I know this. These thoughts are mutual, equal among all of us. I'm not guessing at this, I know it. In a way, it's nice.

"Em, you look so pretty," Hopie said, in her immature, almost whiny voice. "I love your dress."

Isabelle caught my slightly pained expression and put in some of her own insight. "It is a good dress Em," she said. "It looks really nice on you."  
"Judy Garland in Easter Parade," I said, quoting Miss Celine, although I knew none of my sisters would understand. When all three looked at me blankly, I filled in. "That's what Miss Celine, the new dress lady I guess, told me."

"Did you know the old dress lady died?" Rose asked.

Obviously none of us knew this. "No way, the crazy lady?" Hopie asked, ineloquently as she could have. In spite of her crudeness, or maybe because of it, we all laughed. Although young and seemingly immature, Hopie could make us laugh at times.

"She died?" I asked Rose, "Wow, I figured there was some reason Mom got a new dress lady, but I wouldn't have guessed that."

"Why not? She was like a thousand!" Hopie said.

We all laughed, as if we didn't know how to respond. Isabelle and I exchanged glances, knowing full well that we had spoken just as crudely on every Friday within at least the past few years. As much as we pretended not to, we understood Hopie full well. As much as we wished we were, and we said we were, we weren't that much more mature than she.

I realized then that Rose didn't seem to share the same immaturity. I realized that she didn't gossip as Isabelle and I did, at least not that I ever saw. I realized that I would be coming out shortly, within the next few weeks, and wondered if I should be more like Rose and Totsie and less like Hopie and Isabelle. I was about to become a woman in the eyes of society, shouldn't I act like one? I wondered then, for the very first time, if I only disliked Totsie because I misunderstood her maturity. I wondered if she thought of the rest of us as I thought of Hopie, as immature. I wondered if the reason I usually didn't get along well with Totsie and the reason I usually didn't get along well with Hopie were one in the same.


	4. Totsie

Chapter 4

Totsie

It was late August, the day before my coming out ceremony. Totsie had been staying at school for the summer, she had friends there and preferred it to home with her family, but she had come home for the event: her younger sister entering into womanhood in the eyes of society.

From the moment I saw her again, for the first time in months, I realized just how wrong I'd been about why we didn't get along. Memories flooded back to me, and I realized that it was her coldness, not maturity, that I had resented for almost as long as I could remember.

When I hugged her due to nothing but family obligation, I remembered another reason I disliked her. The scent of strong perfume sprayed on much too heavily danced menacingly into my nostrils, and I could almost feel it seeping into my clothes, threatening to penetrate my skin and plague me with the stench.

"Emily darling," she said after she had finished hugging me, "becoming a woman tomorrow. How sweet," she said, almost as if she was trying to irritate me. Although I was only four years younger than her and, as of tomorrow, no different in the eyes of the all-important society, she always talked down to me, as if I was nothing more than a child.

I gave her a smile that I hoped didn't look too pained, willing myself to keep my composure no matter what she said to me. "Nice to see you again, Totsie," I said, completely falsely, although she didn't seem to pick up on it.

"Are you excited?" she asked, as if asking a very young child if she was excited about the arrival of the Easter bunny.

"I suppose," I said, veiling my mortification not at the question directly, but the way it had been asked.

"Well that's nice," she said. She then moved on to my younger sisters, greeting them much as she had me. It disgusted me that Hopie got almost the exact same greeting as I had, considering how much younger she was than I.

I looked on as Totsie finished greeting Hopie and immediately struck up small talk with Rose, skipping entirely the childish greetings she hadn't spared the rest of us.

I took Totsie's moving on to Rose as a cue to escape upstairs with Isabelle. She understood this as well, and we walked from the room casually, and then trotted quickly up two flights of stairs to my room.

I guess being older automatically gives my room precedence as the room Isabelle and I hung out in together, simply because we always had. I didn't know if this rule always held true, because when I was with Rose, we never seemed to be in either of our bedrooms. It was always either our shared room that I had previously thought of as mine, or somewhere else, such as outside, where we often walked as we talked. I didn't spend a great deal of time with my other two sisters, and I didn't really know what they did when together without me, so I wasn't sure if this was a general rule, or just what Isabelle and I did.

"Intolerable," Isabelle said as soon as we were behind my closed door. "She's simply intolerable."

"I don't know how Rose can stand her," I said.

"She treats Rose differently, like she's ten years older than we are. She's only three years older than me, and only two years older than you. Totsie apparently doesn't understand that, though."

"Maybe it's more the difference of two years younger than Totsie verses four or five, as we are," I said, with more reason than Totsie deserved.

"Are you making excuses for her?" Isabelle asked, looking almost hurt. "Because I thought you were on my side."

"Not purposely," I said. "I am on your side."

"Good. Act like it, okay?" she said. "Can I see your dress again?"

"Sure," I said. Somehow my coming out seemed a bigger deal to Isabelle than it was to me. I took it carefully out of my closet and set it on my bed, careful to set it down so that it wouldn't wrinkle.

"Wow," she said, looking over my dress carefully for what seemed like the millionth time. "It's such a good dress, Em."  
"Personally, I like it," I said, smiling.

My sister held her hand just barely an inch above the dress, moving it up and down the fabric gingerly, as if she wanted to touch it, but was afraid.

"You can touch it Is," I said, smiling now at the curious ways of my younger sister.

"Really?" she asked, as if in disbelief that I would let her touch such a sacred article.

"Yes, of course." It didn't matter in the slightest to me that she touched it. Although I loved the dress, it certainly didn't mean so much to me that I wouldn't allow it to be touched, especially by Isabelle, who was not only my favorite sister but one of my best friends.

Watching Isabelle place her hand so carefully on my dress and run her hand down the fabric as if it were the best feeling in the world for her gave me more pleasure than the dress ever had, which surprised me slightly. "Em, you're coming out tomorrow," Isabelle said, stating what seemed at this point to be obvious.

"I know," I said automatically. I watched my sister continually stroke my dress, and I smiled, a smile that had nothing to do with the next day. It was then that I felt and heard words cross my lips that I was positive never entered into my conscious mind, although once they came out, I immediately knew I meant them. "You can try it on if you'd like," I said in a soft voice, the slightest trace of a smile on my lips.

"Em, really?" she asked, as if truly not believing that I had meant what I said. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," I said, not giving it a second thought. I trusted Isabelle very wholeheartedly with this dress, especially considering the way she had been handling it.

"You're really sure? Because…"

I knew my sister wouldn't refuse. Unless I took away the offer, she would be wearing my dress in a matter of moments. I had no thoughts, however, of withdrawing my offer. "Yes I'm sure," I said, smiling very sincerely. "Now go try it on."

I watched my sister pick up my dress as if it were the most important thing she had ever laid her hands on and take it behind my closet door to put it on. She emerged moments later, wearing my dress.

Isabelle was almost the exact same height and body build as I was, and in many ways we looked similar. Her hair was a little darker than mine, and without the red color than mine definitely possessed, and I had bangs while she didn't, but other than that, we did look much the same.

She looked nice in the dress, but somehow the picture didn't work. It was my dress, and truly I didn't mind that she wore it, it just didn't seem right. She was only fifteen, and although only a year younger than I, seemed far too young to be wearing a coming out dress. I could tell she enjoyed it though, and I myself enjoyed watching her.

Isabellestared at herself in my vanity mirror, her face holding a mysterious expression. She was smiling, but just barely. She turned around to look straight at me, and said again, "Em, you're coming out tomorrow."

I don't know if it was the dress or the most sincere expression Isabelle now wore, but this time instead of rolling off of my mind the second it hit, it really sank in. The reality hit me; I was coming out the next day. It was a big deal, as much as I for some reason had been continually telling myself it wasn't. I was excited and nervous, and all of these emotions seemed to hit me at one time. Not because I was happy or upset, but from the sheer rush of emotion all at once, I felt my eyes begin to tear ever so slightly. I looked Isabelle straight in the eye and after a moment, said, "You're right," almost in a whisper.

"Excited?" she asked. It was the millionth time I had responded to this question, but the first time I had really heard it.

"Yes."

"Nervous?"

"Yes."

"It'll be great."

"I know."

"Want your dress back now?" Isabelle smiled.

"Yes."

"Okay." She went back behind my closet door and emerged a moment later in her ordinary clothes. I didn't know how, but seeing my sister in my dress made it finally clear to me that I was coming out. I was going to become a woman in the eyes of society. For what was the first, but not the last time, that mattered to me.


	5. Coming Out

Chapter 5

Coming Out

For the second time, I was wearing my dress, gloves, pearls, shoes, the whole ensemble. This time, however, I felt totally in place. I was surrounded by about thirty girls primping, making sure their hair and makeup were perfect. I was doing the same, tirelessly getting ready for the time, I glanced up at the clock, only ten minutes later, when I would be coming out into society.

I pictured the whole thing in my mind, trying to see mentally what it was going to be like. "Emily Abbott," Mary Chaplain, chairman (or chairwoman, more accurately) of the DAR would say. I would walk out onto the top of the staircase confidently, standing up straight and smiling ever so slightly. I would meet my father, and together we would walk down the stairs. He would smile sincerely, proud to have yet another daughter bridge the gap from childhood to womanhood. At the bottom of the staircase, he would stop and bow, kissing my hand, just as he was supposed to. I would curtsey, and then my escort, who happened to be the son of a friend of my parents', Robert, would take over. He would stand beside me and take me by the arm, and we would walk across the room, following the procession of the maybe one or two other girls who came before me alphabetically.

I have to admit, it was a little embarrassing that I had to get Robert to be my escort. If I had a boyfriend of my own I wouldn't have to force friends of my parents to force their sons to escort me.

I glanced around the room after finishing my third, and finally successful, application of eyeliner. I had kept putting it on either too thick or too thin, but I had finally achieved the perfect line.

I remembered my mother and sisters warning me about girls sneaking alcohol into dressing rooms, a feeble attempt to calm their nerves. My gaze rested on two girls in the corner of the room passing a white bottle back and forth. From the faces they were making after each gulp, I was able to make a pretty good guess that it wasn't orange juice, as the bottle advertised. Some things never changed.

"Five minute warning, girls," Mrs. Chaplain announced, peeking her head into the room. "Oh, you all look so pretty," she added, a bothersome, motherly touch that hadn't been necessary.

None of us replied, but a few complained to each other about not having nearly enough time, and many became far more spastic in the fairly basic task of applying makeup.

The girl in the chair next to me, Jacqueline, became so nervous that her hand shook so badly that she could barely put on her blush. "Let me help," I offered as I watched her fight with her eyeliner pencil. "Don't want to see you take an eye out." At that moment, I wouldn't have been surprised if she had stabbed herself in the eye, so vigorously was her hand shaking.

"Thanks," she said, handing me the pencil. She didn't seem too embarrassed by being unable to apply her own makeup, and I didn't think any worse of her. Coming out was a nerve-wracking process, although it wasn't effecting me in quite the same way, due possibly in part to the fact that I had watched two sisters go through it already.

I was better at applying eyeliner on others than I was on myself, and after all the practice I had had on my own eyes, I achieved a perfect line for Jacqueline on the first try.

"Thank you so much," she said graciously. "You're really good at this, you should be a makeup artist."

"Not really. I had to redo mine three times, so I've just had recent practice."

I noticed that this made Jacqueline laugh. Maybe it loosened her up a bit. "Aren't you nervous?" she asked me.

"I am, I just… I have two older sisters, I've been through it with both of them, and so I guess I'm familiar with the process. I am nervous though, doing it myself. It's nerve-wracking, it definitely is."

"You're lucky you have sisters. I'm an only child, so I have no prior experience with these things whatsoever."

"I know," I said. Although we didn't always get along, I had never felt misfortunate because of my sisters.

I didn't get a chance to say anything else, because Mrs. Chaplain came in at that moment. "We're going to start girls. Everybody ready?"

Surprisingly enough, it looked as though everyone was ready. Nobody complained, at that point it seemed as if most of us just wanted to get it over with. It turned out that I was first in the line up, nobody having the misfortune of having a last name before Abbot alphabetically. It was just as well that I went first as opposed to some pinhead that didn't know what to do, as I was very familiar with where I was to walk and who was to be there.

It went perfectly, just as I had imagined. My father looked proud; Robert didn't look as if he was visibly unhappy. I was actually very happy with Robert's conduct. Nobody in the audience would have been able to guess that we weren't truly seeing each other.

My least favorite part of the evening was the fan dance. We had to divide in to four small groups, each group gathering in a corner of the beautiful, spacious room and dance in a circle, waving feathery fans up and down. Quite frankly I didn't see the point, but it was a tradition, so I didn't complain.

We had a little get together at my favorite restaurant, a rather prestigious Italian place whose name I never had been able to pronounce. It was actually enjoyable. Both of my parents, all four of my sisters, and Robert and his parents all gathered around a fairly large table.

For once I didn't sit beside Isabelle, I sat between Rose and Robert, as he was my escort and it was proper for me to sit beside him. Totsie sat on the other side of Rose, and seemed to find it necessary to continually lean over Rose and ask me obnoxious, unnecessary questions about how it felt to be a woman.

Rose saw my uncomfortable expression and leaned over and whispered to me so that Totsie couldn't hear, "Don't mind her. She did the same to me after my coming out."

I didn't remember Totsie ever being as bothersome to Rose as she had always been to me, but when I thought about it, I couldn't really remember Rose's coming out very well. I thought for an instant that Rose had made this up to make me feel better, but I could tell by the way she had said it that she was being truthful.

Robert kept continually talking to me as well, but not like Totsie was. He was talking about what was best to order, and school, and where I saw myself going. It was strange, Robert and I had known each other almost all of our lives, but didn't usually converse much. I thought at first that he was being polite, but he showed an unusual interest in my responses for someone making small talk.

It didn't dawn on me until later that night at home, when Isabelle and I were sitting on my bed discussing the evening. "I think you might have some potential boyfriend material again, Em," she said to me.

"What do you mean?"

She just looked at me as if I was acting oblivious to something completely obvious. She raised her eyebrows, and what she was trying to say dawned on me.

"What, Robert? No. No, Is, it's _Robert._"

"And? He's good looking. He likes you. I'm not sure, and I don't think you are either, but you might even like him."

I hesitated. I did like Robert, sort of. As long as I had known him, I didn't really know much about him. We had played together when we were very young, but my sisters had always been there with me. More recently, I had preferred the company of my sisters, primarily Isabelle, when he was around. I had never thought of him as good looking, he was just there, a minor character in my life, just Robert. I had absolutely never thought of him as a dating candidate. "Maybe," I said thoughtfully. "I don't know."

"Think about it."

I nodded slightly. That, I knew I would. As I lay in bed that night, my mind was abuzz with thoughts. Thoughts about my coming out, about becoming more mature, about my sisters, and now, thanks to Isabelle, about Robert, an old friend but a potential new player in my love life.


	6. Who Needs Pictures?

Chapter 6

Who Needs Pictures?

September, as it did every year, brought the start of a new school year. I was beginning my junior year in high school, Isabelle was a sophomore. Hopie was going into seventh grade.

The first day of a new school year always brought me happiness and sadness. The start of a new year was in one respect a chance at starting over, at doing everything better that I might not have excelled at the previous year. On the other hand, it was the end of the summer, and I was returned to the monotony and necessity of going to school each day.

As always, I sat next to Isabelle on the bus that morning. We were both sporting new school clothes and new book bags full of new notebooks, pens and pencils. We talked idly about teachers, mostly those Isabelle was going to have that I had had the previous year, as neither of us knew much about where I was going, and I had already talked to Rose and had all the necessary information for the first day.

Rose was going to college in a week. It would be strange not to have her home all the time. I was going to be the oldest of my sisters at home. I could hardly believe it. The summer I actually got to know and like Rose, she was going to college and wouldn't be home anyway. It certainly was strange the way things worked out.

I saw Sarah standing at her locker almost as soon as I walked into my high school. It was a prestigious co-ed private prep school. I had always been happy that my parents hadn't sent me to an all girls school, as most of the private schools in the area were.

"Hi Sarah," I said as I walked up to her new locker. "Found your locker already, I see."

"Yes I did, it wasn't particularly difficult," she said, sort of mocking me in a friendly way.

"I barely saw you this summer," I said. "What have you been up to?" I noticed that Sarah looked exactly the same as the last time I had seen her, long, dark curly hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, green eyes staring at me just as they always did.

"Not a lot, how about you?"

"Not much, hanging with my sisters mostly. I had my coming out party, I told you that, right?"

"Yea, how did that go?"

"Pretty good."

"Who was your escort?"

"Robert Hanley, he's my parents' friends' son. You've probably met him before, he goes to Edward." Edward was an all boys prep school nearby.

"Yes, I think I've met him. Pretty tall, dark, short hair, blue eyes?"

"Yea, that's Robert."

"He's nice."

"He is." I had been thinking a lot about Robert lately, although I hadn't seen him since my coming out. "I'm going to go find my locker and my homeroom now, okay? I'll talk to you later."

"Okay. Enjoy," Sarah said semi-sarcastically. "See you later."

Sarah and I never had our lockers or homerooms anywhere near each other, as my last name was Abbot and hers was Winchester. I was usually in the first homeroom, she in the last, or close to it. I quickly found my locker and put my new supplies into it, then went to the homeroom that the notice I had gotten in the mail instructed me to go to.

The school day passed very slowly, most every teacher listing rules and policies that we had heard what felt like millions of times before. Yet when I got home, the night got far more interesting.

It started out normally, my mother asked me how school had gone, and I told her it had gone fine. On the way upstairs to do my homework, I stopped to tell our current maid, Juanita, that she was scrubbing the bathroom floor inefficiently. She ignored me and kept doing it the way she had been. I ignored the fact that she had ignored me and continued to my room.

Shortly after I had finished what little homework I had, my mother called up the stairs to tell me that I had a telephone call. This wasn't particularly unusual. I picked up the phone in my room. "Hello?"

"Hi Emily, it's Robert." This was unusual. Robert had never called me before to my memory. I had only ever seen him in the past when our families had plans together, plans that neither one of us had ever had any hand in planning.

"Hello Robert," I said, altering my voice slightly to try to sound older. I don't know if it worked, my sisters were far better at flirting than I had ever been.

"So…" he said, giving me no indication as to why he might have called. I had no idea whatsoever what I was supposed to say. It wasn't that I hadn't talked to boys on the phone before, but I had only ever talked to boys on the phone that I was already dating. "You started school today, didn't you?" he said, breaking the silence.

"Yes," I replied, still fighting to sound as if I knew exactly what I was doing. I stretched out the telephone cord almost as far as it could go and stood at my doorway, glancing down the hall toward Isabelle's door. In the brief silence that followed my reply, I stared at the door, willing it to open, or self-destruct. Either would have been fine with me.

"I did too," he said. "How did it go for you?"

"Oh fine, I guess," I said. "The first day is always a bit boring, don't you agree?"

"Definitely," he said. "All of the teachers tend to go over the same policies we've all heard since the first grade."

"First grade? It seems like we've been hearing them since before that," I said relatively naturally.

"Yes it does," he said, laughing. I still didn't know what I was supposed to do. He was quiet again, did that mean I was supposed to say something? I sandwiched the phone between my ear and my shoulder and stood on one foot, pulling off my shoe. I threw it at Isabelle's door, hoping to get her to come out. "What was that?" Robert asked.

"What?"

"That banging sound."

He had heard my shoe. _Oh no. _I didn't know what to tell him, but it wouldn't be that I threw my shoe at my little sister's door so that she could help me with this whole awkward conversation. "Oh, um, construction. There are some workers fixing the road outside, they make some pretty loud noises." It was one of the worst lies I had ever told, but I hoped that he wouldn't notice.

"Oh," he said. I thought he sounded skeptical, but I could have just been paranoid.

During another awkward silence, Isabelle emerged from her room. "Did you…?"

I pressed my finger to my lips and mouthed "Robert. Help," a little more spastically than I had intended.

Isabelle came into my room and sat down on my bed, then signaled for me to do the same. "Relax," she whispered, loud enough so that I knew what she was saying, but not loud enough for Robert to hear. She stood up and went over to my desk. She pulled a notebook and a pen from one of its drawers, and took it with her when she sat back down. She opened to the first page that hadn't been written on and wrote _say something_.

I took the pen from her. _What?_ I wrote.

_Anything. Make conversation._

I nodded. I could do that. "So uh, the whole school thing? I think it's probably a good thing that we didn't do anything yet in math. I'm not looking forward to that."

Isabelle shot me an interesting look and wrote in the notebook again. _Good start, but why are you talking about school?_

"Math isn't too bad," he said. "I really don't like English."

"Really? English is one of my favorite subjects. History on the other hand…"

"Aw, history. That has got to be my very least favorite class. It's just so boring."

"Yes, sincerely boring."

_Don't talk about things that bore you,_ Isabelle wrote. _Talk about things you like. Get away from school!_

"So, do you take a language?" he asked me.

"French. I like it, it's very flowing, flowery."

"French is a little too girly for me," Robert said. "I take Latin." I wondered if I shouldn't have mentioned French. He had asked, though.

Isabelle was writing again. _Don't talk about girly things, talk about things he can get into._

I took back the pen. _He asked! _"So, do you like Latin?" I asked him.

"Yea, it's okay I guess, it isn't my favorite class."

I though about asking what his favorite class was, but just then Isabelle circled where she had earlier written _Get away from school!_ I gave her a questioning look, and she wrote, _Most guys like sports…_

Perfect. "So, do you play any sports?"

"Basketball in season. But it's off season now. I play football with my friends sometimes, but not on an organized team or anything."

I liked this. I never had seen myself with a boy who was as into football as some at my school were. "That's nice," I said, which was basically what I was thinking. Isabelle shook her head.

"Oh, why am I talking about sports? You don't care," Robert said out loud.

"I asked you," I said, my smile coming through in my voice.

"Oh, you did," he said, realizing that I had. "Why? You don't care."

"Well, I guess you're right, I really don't," I said, laughing a little.

This seemed like an appropriate place for an awkward silence, but Robert interrupted before it could occur. "Do you want to go out sometime?" he asked me. "No," he said, before I could answer. "I hate it when girls ask me that. It doesn't give you an out. Let me rephrase. Do you want to go out… this Friday? Dinner and a movie? No, that's too formal for a first date… Movie and a pizza?"

"Movie and a pizza this Friday night sounds perfect to me," I said. "And so does sometime."

"Excellent, but how about we do the movie pizza thing this Friday, since I went through the trouble of making it up off of the top of my head, okay? We can do sometime another time. That is, if this time goes well."

"I'm sure it will," I said. "I'll see you Friday night."

"I'll pick you up at five, we'll get pizza and then catch a six o' clock movie."

"Sounds perfect." It did. I had never pictured myself on a date with Robert Hanley, but, well, who needed pictures, really?


End file.
